Chapter Text
The door clicked shut and Jyn stood with her back to it, disheveled and red faced, still dressed in her quidditch gear, and soaked from the snow and sleet that was currently pounding against the outside of the castle, but the dungeons were cozy and secluded, the only view from her window was the bottom of the lake. Her bed had never been so tempting, winking at her from across the room, piled high with pillows and blankets and-
A Ravenclaw sweater.
Jyn glanced to the other side of the room and saw Leia sitting quietly on her bed, bent over her work. She was so engrossed in her textbook that she hadn’t heard Jyn come in yet. But had she seen the sweater?
Carefully, so as not to alert Leia, Jyn snuck across the room, a difficult task in her clunky quidditch boots and chattering teeth. She had just reached her bed and was reaching for the sweater to tuck it in her Quidditch bag, when Leia noticed.
“Oh fuck, is it that bad out there?” her roommate asked incredulously, looking up and tucking a stray strand of brown hair back into it’s braid.
“Have you left the common room all day?” Jyn asked and tried to casually lean onto the bed and tried to conceal the blue trim on the sweater.
“No,” she said defensively. “I went up to Luke’s room.”
“Leia, have you seen the sky in the past 48 hours?”
Leia shook her head.
“I’ve been trying to crack this clue,” she said, frustrated, and gestured to the large, golden egg sitting on her desk. “There’s some inscriptions on the side I’m trying to translate, but so far it’s all dead ends.”
“My vote is still split it open.” Jyn shrugged. She pushed herself up onto her bed and hastily stuffed the sweater into her bag. “So it won’t work with magic, there’s something genius about just dropping it off the top of the astronomy tower.”
“I might have to take you up on that.” Leia said, glowering at the offending egg. “How was quidditch practice?”
“Take a fucking guess.” Jyn shrugged, letting her sopping robes speak for themselves. “I swear to god this weather is a nightmare .”
“Well you’re the captain, can’t you just...reschedule?” Leia asked, but Jyn shook her head vehemently.
“Are you kidding me?” She gasped. “We have a match with Ravenclaw on Saturday, no way we are losing our lead to them.”
“Mm, speaking of Ravenclaw. Someone left a sweater on your bed.” Leia added without getting up. Jyn’s heart plummeted into her stomach, but she tried to laugh it off.
“Maybe it’s Luke’s.” She tried. “Or Chirrut’s?”
“I’ll ask Luke,” Leia said, without looking up. “But it looks a little too big to be his.”
“Huh. Weird.” Jyn did her best to look confused. “Yeah I’ll ask around. Anyways, I’ve got to shower.”
“I’ll be here. Staring at this egg until it opens.” Her friend sighed. “Oh, and when you go out could you bring me some food?”
“Dinner’s been over for hours, it’s almost curfew?” Jyn asked from the door of the bathroom, confused.
“Well, in case you go out.” Leia turned back to her work, but Jyn caught a glimpse of the smirk on her face. “For any reason.”
“Yeah, sure. If I go out I’ll make sure to get you something. If.” Jyn flushed and shut the bathroom door behind her.
Making quick work of shedding her cold and wet layers and throwing them haphazardly into a corner, Jyn turned on a stream of hot water and stepped in, finally getting feeling back into her toes, but her mind stayed on the sweater.
She was so careful to keep it hidden, tucked away in a drawer or under her sheets, only wearing it when she knew Leia wasn’t going to walk in and ask her about it.
But if Leia noticed the sweater, and the sneaking out...maybe she’d worked it out? And if she’d worked it out, obviously the rest of their friends had, too.
Oh boy, she was going to have to have a few words with him.
By the time she’d managed to get out of the wonderfully warm shower and the steam filled room, she cracked open the door to see Leia passed out at her desk, head on the ancient textbook with indecipherable writings.
She glanced down at her watch and cursed. 11:30 pm. She was running late.
Silently, Jyn threw on a comfortable pair of leggings and an oversize sweater and slipped out the door. The common room was silent, in the heavy way the air felt before a thunderstorm. In a movement that’s become instinctive, Jyn drew her wand and tapped the stone below an oversized portrait of a sleeping woman, causing the stones of the passage to slide out silently, letting her exit the common room without triggering a screaming portrait.
“ Lumos, ” she whispered as soon as the passage closed behind her, and the tip of her wand lit up with a small, bright light as she traced her familiar footsteps up from the dungeons. She should’ve taken one of the countless passageways, it was safer not to get caught, but Jyn raced up the main staircases, hopping steps two at a time, until finally she reached the East Wing. They’d met in the Room of Requirement plenty of times, but after a while it decided to only pop up in the direst of circumstances. So the wanderings of two insomniacs had discovered a long obsolete classroom hidden in the back of the library. Which wasn’t ideal, but was often enough.
“Jyn,” A soft voice exhaled when she stepped in the room, and she barely had enough time to set down her wand before soft lips came crashing into hers and strong arms wrapped around her, lifting her off the ground.
Jyn threaded her fingers through soft, thick hair and sighed into the kiss. The feel of his arms was comforting, familiar. Home.
“Cassian,” She sighed, finally breaking the kiss. The boy’s dark eyes sparkled in the small pool of light cast by their wands, and his soft smile was contagious. Cassian Andor was infuriating, stubborn, and absolutely irresistible. Without words, he pulled her in closer and trailed a string of kisses down her jaw and neck, and the soft sting of his stubble told her that there would definitely be a mark there the next morning. Cassian pulled her back with him until his back was to the table.
“Cassian.” She hissed as he flipped her over and pinned her beneath him. “Can you not keep it in your pants for a damn second?”
Cassian grinned sheepishly above her and kissed her forehead before pulling away.
“Sorry,” He whispered, but Jyn smiled back at him and sat up, but wrapped her legs around his waist and tucked her head against his shoulder. “I was just happy to see you.”
“You’re getting soft on me, Cass.” Jyn joked. Cassian had always been soft, no one else knew that of course.
To the rest of Hogwarts, Erso and Andor had the fiercest Quidditch rivalry Hogwarts had ever seen, hell, maybe the fiercest rivalry Hogwarts had ever seen. Staring each other down in hallways, trading insults in the Great Hall. But this...this was new-ish. The rivalry was real, for a while.
But then it wasn’t. Something changed, inexplicably. She was knocked off her broom during a match and sent spiraling toward the ground. The last thing she saw was Cassian diving for her, throwing the match in the process. When she woke up in the hospital wing, Cassian was by her side, asleep in the chair next to her bed, his head resting on the mattress beside her.
“How’s Leia doing with the clue?” Cassian asked, absentmindedly playing with her hair.
“She fell asleep on the clue when I left.”
“See, I think we should just break it open.”
“That’s what I’ve been saying!” Jyn exclaimed, and Cassian cut her off with a kiss.
“I know.” He smiled. “You’ve been telling me since she got it.”
“Oh.” Jyn blushed. “Forgot about that.”
Cassian rolled onto his side, bringing Jyn with him. The table was hardly the most comfortable place to cuddle, but the both their roommates were home. And besides, the castle was freezing this time in the winter, and Cassian was practically a human space heater.
“Cass-” She started, and he stared at her with big, bright eyes.
Jyn considered telling Cassian that Leia found his sweater that she slept in, which complicates their “secret relationship” side of things. But that meant confessing that she slept in his sweater because it was soft and smelled like him, it would also mean ruining the mood to talk about serious stuff. Like when they should stop sneaking around all the time. And having to face everyone looking at her with more side glances than they already did (that mudblood in Slytherin ? Can you believe it ?) because she was dating Cassian fucking Andor , who was so far out of her league they were playing entirely different sports.
But with Ravenclaw and Slytherin neck and neck for the House Cup, there was no way they could come clean now.
“-Your tie is crooked.” She finished lamely, Cassian raised an eyebrow incredulously. Jyn cut him off the best way she knew how, by pulling him down into a soft, slow kiss.
So she didn’t say anything and they stayed there, curled up on the table of the forsaken classroom, jumping at sounds, telling exaggerated ghost stories, and bitching about class until she started to doze off on his chest.
“Fuck,” She grumbled, shaking herself awake. “I promised Leia I’d steal her food. I should get going.”
She stood up and Cassian caught her arm to stand up with her.
“I’ll walk you back.” He said. “I mean. With the fucking ghosts? You never know if Peeves is going to rat you out. Or worse.”
“Fine.” She huffed and straightened out her sweater. The two of them stumbled in the dark to pick up their wands, hands clasped between them.
Cassian left the room first, peeking around the corner to check if the coast was clear, and gestured for Jyn to follow him.
“Jesus it’s cold out here.” She grumbled, pulling her hands back into the sleeves of her sweater.
“Well,” Cassian smirked. “I’d offer you my sweater, but that’d just be another sweater I’ll never get back.”
Jyn was spared having to answer by a sudden noise at the end of the hall.
“Shit, that’s Jabba.” She hissed, pulling Cassian by the collar to duck into a pitch black alcove, hidden behind a statue.
“That’s not so bad, I think Jabba is just misund-”
“Shut up, Andor.”
Jyn stood on her toes to peer under the arm of the statue, but it wasn’t the caretaker lumbering down the hall that she saw, or even one of the school’s many ghosts, but a gray haired man, his light colored robes cleanly pressed and illuminated by his wand.
“Jyn?” Cassian asked and Jyn sunk back, pressing herself to the wall. “Jyn?”
“Don’t move.” She breathed, Cassian could barely hear her, and her lips were against his ear. “It’s fucking Krennic.”
Cassian tensed beside her and gripped her wrist. If Professor Krennic caught them out after curfew they were dead. His footsteps got closer and closer and Jyn bristled. She’d been raging to hex him since first year, when she’d shown up to transfiguration bright eyed and all of eleven years old, too small to fit in her robes, when Krennic called her name on the roster and smoothly drawled that “no matter how important her father was in the muggle world, it brought him shame to see a muggleborn in Slytherin green.” She was kicked out of class for firing her first stupefy that flew over Krennic’s head and crashed through a window. It also got class cancelled, and made Jyn a hero.
“What is he doing out here?” Cassian whispered and Jyn shook her head, confused. She could hear his footsteps getting louder and the light growing brighter as he walked down the hallway. The two of them were hidden enough by the statue now, but if he got any closer the light would reveal them.
Jyn’s mind was already racing thinking of spells to cast and she held her wand in front of her face, ready to cast a spell or even throw a punch if it came down to it. Didn’t matter how many house points she lost, she’d just make them up in Quidditch.
The light began to spread over the statue and lit the side of their faces, and Jyn could practically hear Krennic’s breathing when Cassian tapped her shoulder.
She looked over at him and he gestured to a fraying tapestry on the wall behind them, it wasn’t visible in the dark but now it was plain as day, and it was caved in slightly.
Of course. A passageway!
Krennic’s footsteps slowed, and without wasting another minute Jyn dived for the tunnel, Cassian following immediately after her. The space was tall enough for Jyn to walk in, but Cassian had to duck.
“Who’s there?” They heard the transfiguration teacher call out in the distance, but they were booking it down the secret passage with no thought to where it led until they came tumbling out into the kitchens.
“See? Exactly where we were going!” Cassian grinned, and it was infectious.
“You asshole.” She laughed, bumping her shoulder against his. “That was sheer luck, we could’ve ended up in the Forbidden Forest, for all you knew.”
“I could feel you getting ready to murder him.” Cassian said absentmindedly, scanning the shelves for something that wasn’t flour. “I figured a brisk walk would be better than scrubbing blood off the floor.”
“Fair.” She rolled her eyes and Cassian smiled down at her, dropping a kiss on her forehead before looking back up at the shelf.
“Damn,” He cursed. “Nothing but bags of flour. What the fuck is up with that?”
“Well, we have to feed Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, too.” Jyn suggested, stifling a yawn. “Guess there’s less stuff lying around. We could ask a house elf?”
Cassian shook his head.
“It’s late. You’re tired, you should get back to your room.” He said.
“I’m not tired!”
“I can either walk you to your dormitory or carry you.”
“And look at the time.” Jyn said, heading for the door. Behind her, Cassian laughed and followed, reaching out to loop an arm around her shoulders, like he always did.
“I think Leia knows I’ve been sneaking out.” Jyn admitted after a long comfortable silence traversing the stairs to the dungeon. “That’s why she asked me to get food.”
“Ah, my roommate knows I’ve been sneaking out.” Cassian replied. “It’s pretty much impossible to keep anything from Chirrut. He doesn’t mind though, because that just gives him time alone with Baze.”
“That’s sweet.” She smiled. By now they were standing in front of the blocked up archway that led to the Slytherin common room. Cassian leaned against the wall, blocking her way to get in and looking at her quietly.
“Password?” He asked and smirked at her.
“Cassian, you fucking nerd.” Jyn snorted.
“That’s not the password.”
“Smartass.”
“That’s not the password either.”
Jyn shot him a frustrated glare and Cassian winked before stepping away.
“I’ll take it easy on you tonight,” He said. “Since you’ve got such a big day tomorrow.”
“Yeah, you should get some rest, too. Before I crush you and your team into the dust.” Jyn smirked.
“Watch yourself, Erso. Wouldn’t want to get too cocky. Might jinx yourself.”
“Oh please,” She leaned in to kiss his cheek before walking through the archway. “You’re going down, Andor. Sleep well.”